Jay's POV
The car ride home was a hollow silence, the kind that follows a storm. My phone buzzed with a message
*Gagobaliw*
"I'm not the martyr, J. I'm just a man who realized too late that the only empire worth having was the one we built in that tiny apartment over shared noodles. I didn't take the easy path—I took the only one that kept you breathing. Please. Don't use that CEO voice with me. Don't call me Mr. Watson. Just give me some time .. One chance to be the man you actually needed instead of the monster I became to protect you.
I love you Jay , until the scientist find the hand of universe❤️"
The screen of my phone felt like it was burning my palm. I stared at the words until they blurred into a mess of blue and white.
I wanted to run back through the shadows, throw myself into his arms, and hit his chest until my hands were sore—then hold him until the world stopped trying to tear us apart. I wanted to tell him that I loved him so much it terrified me, more than the Board of Directors or the Watson name ever could.
"I love you, you idiot," I whispered, the words disappearing into the plush leather of the interior.
But as the tears threatened to fall, I gripped the armrest until the stitching dug into my palms. I was controlling the storm. I couldn't let myself fall. He don't have the right to take decision for us on his own.He don't have right to break my heart and then come back hoping that an explanation would fix it.
I went inside my room but my sleep was lost.
The next morning 🌄
The next morning felt wrong. Aries was home, grounded by a sling and Angelo's overprotective orders. Percy caught up in emergency meeting. For the first time in months, I walked the path to school alone.
I took the shortcut through the industrial district, the fog clinging to the pavement. A flash of neon caught my eye—a jacket. Cin.
He was sprawled near the entrance of an old textile warehouse, his body limp and unconscious. Fear, cold and sharp, pierced my gut. As I stepped toward him, a shadow moved behind the rusted doors. I didn't think; I followed.
The air inside smelled of grease and stale cigarettes. I barely cleared the threshold when the world tilted. A heavy pipe collided with the back of my skull. White light exploded behind my eyes, and then—darkness.
When I finally surged back to consciousness, my breath hitched. My wrists were bound with coarse rope to a rusted support beam. My head throbbed in sync with my heartbeat.
Ten feet away, Mykle and his thugs were using Cin as a literal punching bag. Cin groaned, his face a map of purple and red.
"Finally, the guest of honor is awake," Mykle sneered, stepping away from Cin. He walked over and grabbed a handful of my hair, wrenching my head back until I had to look into his bloodshot eyes. "You think you're so special? You're just a filthy bitch playing hero."
"Let him go, Mykle," I spat, despite the blood trickling down my neck.
"Mica rejected me because of you," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "If you hadn't open your mouth that day , she might now was my girlfriend."
He threw a backhand across my face, then turned back to Cin, landing a brutal kick to his ribs.
I screamed, pulling at the ropes until the skin on my wrists tore. I managed to kick one of the goons in the groin as they approached, but a second one struck me across the temple with a brass knuckle.
Warm blood began to pour down my face, stinging my eyes. The sight of my own blood hitting the concrete triggered something deep, something buried under.My vision tunneled. The room didn't look like a warehouse anymore; it looked like the dark corners of my childhood nightmares
My breathing turned into a jagged wheeze.
Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't...
The world turned red, and the "Jay" I knew flickered out.
Cin's POV
I was drifting. Each kick from Mykle's gang , heavy boots felt further and further away, like a drum beating in a different room. My vision was a blurred mess of gray concrete and red smears. I was ready for it to end. I just wanted them to stop hitting me.
Then, the world went silent.
I forced my one good eye open. Jay was on the floor, a pool of blood spreading from her head like a dark halo. One of the boy was standing over her, laughing—a jagged, ugly sound.
"Look at the little bitch now," he sneered, raising his boot to stomp on her hand.
But his foot never landed.
A sound came from Jay. It wasn't a scream or a cry; it was a low, guttural vibration that made the hair on my neck stand up. Jay's fingers twitched in the blood, then curled into a claw.
She pushed herself up—not like a person, but like a machine being restarted.
When she looked up, I felt a bolt of pure terror shoot through my spine. The girl I knew was gone. Her eyes were wide, vacant, and fixed in a terrifying, thousand-yard stare.
"Jay?" I croaked.
She didn't hear me. She moved.
It was a blur of violence so fast my brain couldn't process it. She lunged at the goon with the chain, catching the metal mid-swing. She didn't flinch as the links bruised her skin; she yanked him forward and delivered a series of palm-strikes to his chest and throat that sounded like wood snapping. He went down, gasping for air, but she didn't stop.
She turned on Mykle. He tried to swing a pipe, but she slipped under his guard like a shadow. She grabbed his hair—the same way he had grabbed hers—and slammed his face into the concrete floor. Crack. Then again. Crack.
She was brutal. She wasn't just defending herself; she was dismantling them. She was throwing punches with a rhythmic, terrifying precision, her knuckles split and dripping with a mix of her blood and theirs.
"No more... please..." Mykle whimpered, his face a ruin of purple and red.
Jay didn't seem to hear his plea. She picked up the discarded heavy chain, wrapping it around her fist. She looked like an avenging ghost, her white shirt soaked in crimson.
Suddenly, she stopped. Her hand began to shake. The chain clattered to the floor, the sound echoing like a death knell. She stumbled back into the darkest corner of the warehouse, sliding down the wall.
"No one can hurt me... don't touch me... go away..." she started sobbing, her voice small and broken, curling into a ball as if trying to disappear into the bricks.
Bam
The warehouse doors burst open with a roar of metal. I saw Angelo's silhouette first—a titan of rage—followed by Percy and the chaos of Section E. They didn't see the thugs first. They saw Jay.
They stopped dead at the sight of the broken bodies on the floor and Jay, huddled in the corner, shaking violently.
"Jay!" Percy screamed, rushing forward.
He and Angelo reached her at the same time. She pushed them away, her eyes not recognizing them, her hands clawing at the air as if fighting off invisible demons.
"Stay back! Don't touch me!" she wailed.
"Jay, it's me. It's Angelo. You're safe," Angelo whispered, his voice cracking as he finally managed to pin her arms gently, pulling her shaking frame against his chest.
Percy grabbed her hand, murmuring something until the tension finally left her body.
She went limp, her eyes rolling back as she fell into a deep, trauma-induced unconsciousness. Angelo scooped her up, his eyes burning with a promise of retribution as he looked at the wreckage of the warehouse.
"Section E," Angelo said, his voice cold enough to freeze the air. "Clean this up. I'm taking Jay hospital."